I have a Thule rack for my '96 855T wagon. I actually had the Thule rack many years before the 855 -- I orginally bought the rack for a 85 Mitsubishi Galant (the Galant was a mistake, but that's not part of this story). The Thule rack is rock solid. I have two bicycle racks, a ski rack, the luggage rack (which generates lots of wind noise), the fairing which reduces wind noise (but I've never tried it with the luggage rack), and an Adventurer 2000 car top box which will probably eliminate the luggage and ski racks. Everything fits nice and tight on the rack. In most cases there is little wind noise and no rattles from the hardware.

My only beefs are the locks which install over the feet. It is darn near impossible to turn the locks. The best technique is to push the lock in while turning the key, but it is a REALLY tight fit. I've bent a couple of keys trying to put them on. This is partically remedied by having a steel key cut (as opposed to the aluminum key that came with the locks).

Note that this is just the locks that lock down the feet and not the locks that work anywhere else (e.g. the load box, bike racks, etc.). All my other locks work really well regardless of the weather.

Volvo sells the Thule rack as an accessory, but I would probably buy the rack from REI Coop who would charge less for the same thing. Thule has mounting feet that fit exactly the holes in the door frames of Volvos. I'm not sure if Yakima had the same setup.

The other big company is racks is Yakima. I have a friend who has their rack and it also works well. I'm not sure how well they would work on a Volvo. I was told once by the people at the REI Coop that Thule makes all of Yakama's cargo boxes. They also have a really nice wire luggage rack that can be attached above or below the load bars. The mounting below the bars is great when you have a bicycle rack mounted on top of bar. Yakama's stuff tends to be a bit less expensive than Thule.

If you have the money, I would buy the Thule rack system, but Yakima is not too far behind either. Both have several different style of bike carriers and loads of other accessories for skis, sailboards, canoes, load boxes, etc. You may want to look into what kind of bikes you have as some bike carriers don't fit some of the newer, non-traditional shaped frames. That may drive your decision more than anything else.

Eric